Chapter 155 Training Center (Bonus Chapter) A thrilling combination is formed...
Zhou Fangdong arrived at the third-floor corridor and, as usual, began to feel around on the walls, eventually successfully activating a door.
However, something seems off about this door.
This is a dilapidated wooden door, its surface severely rotten and covered with rough wood chips. The doorknob is also a very old-fashioned, round type that needs to be twisted, and its surface is covered with dark red rust.
Zhou Fangdong lowered his gaze to the red liquid seeping from the crack in the door.
"System, am I seeing things? This looks like blood..."
[Host, you're not mistaken, this is blood.]
Zhou Fangdong frowned. "Which ghost is so inconsiderate, splattering blood everywhere? It'll be a real hassle to clean up."
[Perhaps he was so excited and his blood was boiling knowing the host was coming.]
"Tongzi, you're quite active today. Did you update the straight man plugin?" Zhou Fangdong said as he turned the doorknob and opened the dilapidated wooden door.
The door hinges emitted a harsh metallic scraping sound, and Zhou Fangdong's tug failed to open them.
Keep in mind that he had already invested a lot of attribute points into stamina, and could easily lift Zhao Dawei with one hand, but now he couldn't even open a broken wooden door.
He has the key to the hidden room on the third floor. The door to the hidden room couldn't possibly be locked, so...
Zhou Fangdong paused for a moment, then pushed the door further in.
The door hinges turned with a relieved creak, and the wooden door was easily pushed open.
Zhou Fangdong coughed awkwardly, bypassed the blood spilling outside the door, and entered the hidden room.
The hidden room on the third floor looks like a weirdo's laboratory, or a museum displaying bizarre exhibits.
The room had the familiar unfinished cement decor.
The first thing Zhou Fangdong saw upon entering was a row of glass specimen jars as tall as a person. There were no deformed limbs or internal organs in the jars, only a lot of red liquid.
The glass jar in the very center is broken, and the pool of red liquid that has spilled outside the door came from this jar.
Zhou Fangdong used the [Heavenly Eye] skill to examine the blood.
【Ghost Blood】: The materialized Yin energy produced by the condensation of resentment, originating from a vengeful ghost with extremely deep resentment.
"Ah, I know." A sudden thought flashed through Zhou Fangdong's mind. "Is the blood that flows out of the tap after the protagonist in some horror movies turns on the tap like this?"
After all, no ghost can create things out of thin air... If it could, that would be even better, as the rare blood type inventory in the blood bank could be saved.
Besides the row of eye-catching glass jars, the room also displays many mummies.
These mummies were of different kinds; some resembled dried bacon, while others looked like the bodies of zombies—only their skin color had changed. Some were covered in frost, as if they had just been taken out of the freezer.
These mummies were all in fragmented form and were placed on a table that resembled an exhibition stand.
Besides mummified corpses, these display stands also contained many instruments that Zhou Fangdong couldn't understand.
Zhou Fangdong casually picked up a huge pair of pliers, about the length of an adult's arm, and examined it.
He discovered that the pliers, which were almost half the size of his head, were called tooth extraction pliers.
...You mean pulling teeth from a dinosaur?
Zhou Fangdong sighed and put the pliers back on the table.
The hidden room gave him a sense of déjà vu, making him feel as if he had returned to room 207.
Those highly creative and deranged killers are also so keen on manipulating the various parts of a corpse.
Zhou Fangdong bypassed the booths and continued walking into the room.
This hidden room is about the same size as the hidden room on the 4th floor, around 30 square meters.
There were no partitions inside; the only thing hidden from view by the mummified corpse display was a concrete step with a huge red button on it.
"System, is this the legendary button that will detonate the world when pressed?"
[The host has detected the start button; the Liwan Apartment Business Training Center has been unlocked.]
Still struggling with unskilled tenants who can't perform their jobs effectively? Frustrated by bad luck in getting the tenants you want? The Training Center is now unlocked! You can train unskilled tenants to acquire new skills or specialize in their existing ones, making them more efficient!
[Currently, the training center is applicable to: ghost tenants in apartments, and apartment cleaners.]
The training center can currently train two ghost tenants at a time; more slots can be unlocked using Ghost Coins.
"System, what are the costs involved in training ghost tenants?"
[Training in the glass jar costs 50 reputation points and 5000 ghost coins. Please try to train the ghost tenant's existing skills or skills that interest you, otherwise the success rate will be lower.]
Training with familiar, ghostly tenants can yield additional results, potentially leading to exciting combo attacks.
Zhou Fangdong continued, "If I want to train a ghost tenant with blacksmithing skills, how should I do it?"
Before training the ghost tenant by stuffing them into the glass jar, choose one of the blacksmith-related items on the table and stuff it into the glass jar along with the other items.
"Do these props on the table have a production method?"
[The paranormal props planted in the garden planting area may become training tools]
Zhou Fangdong nodded and didn't ask any more questions.
This is a very useful hidden room. Once the blacksmith shop in the Ghost Market is built, there won't be any shortage of suitable ghost tenants.
Training familiar ghost tenants together will produce combo skills... Well, the Ghost Postman family, and the Taoist priests at Izumo Temple can all be trained together.
However, the training can wait until later. Right now, the blacksmith shop in the ghost market hasn't been built yet, and the ghost postman's wife and children haven't regained their senses.
Thinking of the Taoist priests living in the back building of the apartment, Zhou Fangdong suddenly remembered something.
He hasn't had a chance to use the dungeon sweep interface since it was created yesterday.
We can't let the Taoist priests continue to be idle; we need to start arranging for them to sweep through the back building.
Zhou Fangdong opened the dungeon sweep interface, selected the second floor of the back building, and stuffed all the remaining six ghost tenant Taoist priests into it.
...The three-hour countdown to the sweep is not bad; the pace isn't too slow.
After searching the hidden rooms on the third floor, Zhou Fangdong arrived at the door of room 306.
Pushing open the door, room 306 was still the same as when he left, shrouded in a white mist. Professor Sun sat on the bench with a blank stare.
Zhou Fangdong immediately took out a kerosene lamp and dispelled the ghostly aura.
Under the light of the kerosene lamp, the white mist instantly dissipated, revealing the original appearance of Room 306.
Professor Sun, enveloped in the ghostly realm, remained unchanged, but the state of the room faithfully recorded the passage of time.
Under the influence of the apartment's eerie atmosphere, all the furniture in the room was completely ruined. The wooden planks on the floor were warped and covered in dust. The coffee table in the living room was overturned, and the sofa's stuffing had burst out from the cracked leather, lying on the floor like entrails.
Next to the coffee table was a collapsed folding bed, its broken supporting iron frame completely covered with layers of rust.
Professor Sun, whose hair was parted in a 3/7 style, sat next to the folding bed, his blank and empty eyes gradually regaining their sparkle.
As he regained consciousness, the figure of a hunched old man in a hospital gown gradually appeared beside him.
The old man, with his hands behind his back, glanced at Zhou Fangdong with his eyes, which were mostly white with no pupils. He pursed his dry lips but didn't dare to say a word.
When Zhou Fangdong opened the system store, intending to buy a fully automatic cleaning tool, he suddenly discovered that new items had been added to the store.
[Advanced Fully Automatic Cleaning Tool] Price: 300 Ghost Coins
This tool allows for one-click cleaning with no waiting time. It covers an area of 150 square meters.
No waiting time, that's great.
Zhou Fangdong bought it without hesitation.
Although this advanced cleaning tool costs 220 ghost coins more than the intermediate one, Zhou Fangdong is not short of money now.
With 460,000 Ghost Coins in his possession, he is no longer the poor landlord who used to have to split every Ghost Coin in half.
Zhou Fangdong used advanced fully automatic cleaning tools for room 306.
It truly is a one-click cleanup; all the dirt and broken furniture in the room disappeared in the blink of an eye, making it look like a ghost tenant had moved in.
The sudden change in the room startled Professor Sun. He stared at Zhou Fangdong in disbelief for a moment, then pinched his arm hard.
...It hurts a lot, I'm not dreaming.
What's wrong with him? He remembers just being on a trip with... with someone.
How did he suddenly end up in this dilapidated room from a tourist attraction? Who is that young man? He actually changed the room's decor with a single click... How did he do that? Is it a holographic projection? Is technology that advanced now?
Professor Sun felt his mind was in a mess. He wanted to ask some questions, but for a moment he didn't know which one to ask first.
Zhou Fangdong was busy arranging the furniture and didn't want to explain too much. He waved to the old man who was rolling his eyes and said, "This is your future tenant. Could you please create another illusion to help explain what has happened over the years and the situation in this room?"
The ghost in room 306 sighed softly and came to Professor Sun's side.
In the instant the human and the ghost locked eyes, Professor Sun's eyes also turned into a display of only the whites.
When Professor Sun returned to normal, Zhou Fangdong took out the rental contract he had written the day before and handed it to him.
"I am the current landlord of Liwan Apartment. Please sign the rental contract."
Professor Sun took the contract and reached into his pocket... He had some change in his pocket, exactly 30.
Zhou Fangdong took the signed contract, handed over the key to room 306, and, as usual, reminded him not to lose the key.
Professor Sun nodded mechanically, as if he hadn't yet recovered from the shock of those illusions.
...One second they were in paradise, traveling around with their 'father', and the next they were in hell, overrun by ghosts and monsters.
Even experienced and knowledgeable university professors cannot immediately process such a huge contrast.
As Professor Sun took the key, the system notification sounded, indicating that the task was complete.
Side Quest 19 Completed. Rewards: 800 Ghost Coins, 2000 Experience Points, 1 Random Skill Point.
[Low-level tenant - Ordinary university professor, unlocked. Please claim your character reward in time.]
"You can rest in your room. If you get hungry, you can go to the convenience store on the first floor to buy food. Room 104 is now a convenience store."
After saying that, Zhou Fangdong left the room.
He glanced at the progress of the air purification device during the renovation.
After he searched the hidden room on the third floor and cleaned the rented room 306, the device on the fifth floor was still not fully installed.
Moreover, unlike other devices, this device on the 5th floor did not have a countdown timer during its installation.
Is the system deliberately targeting him...? Does it really not want him to renovate the 5th floor?
[The system is not targeting the host. The 5th floor originally had collapse cracks. The renovation and protective devices not only need to add the function of blocking external spiritual projections, but also need to add support functions to prevent the floor from collapsing and cracking again.]
"Okay, I'll wait a bit longer."
Zhou Fangdong opened the tenant catalog and received Professor Sun's reward of 30 Ghost Coins.
This is the reward for lower-tier tenants; he's used to it.
However, looking at the university professor's illustrations, Zhou Fangdong suddenly remembered something.
"Speaking of which, Tongzi, do you think I should set up a school in the apartment?"
The system doesn't understand what the host is saying.
“Look, Ke Yan used to tutor Xiao Di with her homework, but now Ke Yan is the director of Liwan Hospital. She works from 8 am to 5 pm and also has to do her own research, so she has less time to tutor Xiao Di with her homework.”
“It doesn’t have to be a school, just a tutoring class will do. We happen to have a university professor here.” Zhou Fangdong stroked his chin. “Besides, I think the kids in our apartment are too happy. How can they sleep at their age… how can they play so carefree?”
"Knowledge is power. Let these little devils receive post-mortem education, and maybe their strength and height will increase."
As Zhou Fangdong spoke, he teleported to the second floor and pushed open the door to the slime farm.
He planned to go to the ghost market to collect payment from the funeral clothing shop and build the blacksmith shop while he was there.
[Host, if you feel you don't have enough ghosts, you can go to the back building of the apartment; there are many vacant ghosts and ghost tenants there.]
"No, I don't want to hire child laborers. I just think children this age should continue their studies. After all, knowledge is very important, and even as a ghost, one should not give up their education."
"Seeing Xiao Di's thirst for knowledge in his eyes, I felt that kids like him must also be yearning for knowledge."
The headless imps and chair imps, who were playing happily in the activity room, suddenly felt a chill, as if they were being watched by some terrifying ghost.
[...]
The system believes that these children may not actually crave knowledge, so let them go.
After the system's electronic voice finished speaking, there was a sudden pause, followed by a cold, clear notification sound:
[Detection indicates that the tenant of room 306 has left the apartment and entered another paranormal location.]
The tenant in room 306 faces a life-threatening crisis, triggering the automatic protection mechanism of the ghost in room 306.
The tenant in room 306 has been forgotten by all the ghosts and spirits of this haunted location. Please recall this tenant as soon as possible.
Zhou Fangdong paused as he prepared to open the portal to the Ghost Market, staring at the pop-up notifications in disbelief.
Isn't the tenant of room 306 Professor Sun, the university teacher we just talked about?
Did he spend more than 10 minutes signing the tenant contract with him?
Now I finally understand why the ghost in room 306 didn't trust Professor Sun to leave the room; its speed in attracting ghosts is unmatched.
Zhou Fangdong opened the list of special tenants he was watching and checked Professor Sun's movements.
The tenant didn't even leave the apartment building.
He took the elevator to the first floor, got off the elevator, went to the residents' mailbox, took a job flyer from the mailbox in room 306, and then disappeared.
Other newly moved-in tenants at least need to go out for a walk before the event is triggered.
Even Li Ou stepped out of the apartment door.
Professor Sun was taken away without even stepping out of the apartment door, looking so fresh and beautiful.
What puzzled Zhou Fangdong was that the first to third floors were now fully protected, and the power of the main god could not penetrate them.
In that case, the recruitment flyer that Professor Sun touched must have nothing to do with the main god. After all, the protection for renovations is quite valuable, as the evil god himself verified yesterday.
Zhou Fangdong opened the [Linjiang City Map] and checked Professor Sun's location.
He is currently in an abandoned primary school in the eastern suburbs, located slightly above the New Star Resort, which is also a well-known haunted area in Linjiang City.
This tenant is so thoughtful... Actually, Zhou Fangdong was just saying it casually when he mentioned setting up tutoring classes, just to bother the system out of boredom.
Although I don't know what's going on with that job posting, since Professor Sun has already gone there, it's a good time to test out my newly acquired landlord-specific skills.
Zhou Fangdong looked at the [Linjiang City Map] and used the [Forced Expropriation] skill on the abandoned primary school area.
...He announced that the school was now his, and from then on, all the kids in the apartment would have a place to go to school.
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